Otto Herbert Wolff

Otto Herbert Wolff, (born 10 January 1920 in Hamburg, died 27 April 2010) was a German born medical scientist, paediatrician and was the Nuffield Professor of Child Health at Great Ormond Street Hospital. Wolff was notable for being one of the first paediatricians in Britain to set up a clinic for obese children. Later research into plasma lipids with Harold Salt pioneered the techniques of lipoprotein electrophoresis. He later conducted research into the role of lipid disturbance in childhood as a precursor of coronary artery disease and his recognition in 1960 of the rare condition of abetalipoproteinaemia. Wolff was also co-discoverer of the Edwards syndrome in abnormal chromosomes. Wolff's British father, Herbert Arnold Jacob Wolff, was a GP,

In 1965, Wolff moved to London and was appointed the second Nuffield Professor of Child Health at the Institute of Child Health and consultant paediatrician at Great Ormond Street Hospital and the University of London. The previous Nuffield Professor was Sir Alan Moncrieff.

Awards and honours Wolff was Knighted in 1985 with a CBE.

In 1985 Wolff was awarded the Dawson Williams Memorial Prize from the British Medical Association, and in 1986 the medal of the Association Française pour le Dépistage et le Prévention des Maladies Métaboliques et des Handicaps de l’Enfant. 1987 brought the Harding Award from the Action Research for the Crippled Child, later the Action Medical Research. Wolff was awarded the prestigious James Spence Medal in 1988, by the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health.